Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 7.djvu/207

 ANUND RAO PUAR. (386)

IR JOHN MALCOLM gives the following account of Dhar:—"The district contains about 400 square miles, and when properly cultivated, yields almost every tropical production, and, amongst others, opium. It comprehends 179 villages, all of which are situated in level or hilly tracts, and peopled by Bheels. In 1826 the number of inhabited houses was 7,573 and its population about 37,835 souls, in the proportion of one Mahornedan to sixteen Hindoos.

"The city of Dhar appears at one period to have covered a great extent of ground, and is said to have contained 20,000 houses. In 1820 the number did not amount to 5,000, but the population was then rapidly increasing. In length it may be about three-fourths of a mile by half a mile in breadth, and is surrounded by a mud wall. The interior, however, contains some good buildings, and is watered by eight large and two small tanks. The fort is entirely detached from the city, standing on a rising ground about forty feet above the plain. The walls are about thirty feet high, and fortified with round and square towers. Dhar is the head of a petty state, and the residence of the Rajah, whose palace is substantially built of stone. In 1826 his revenue amounted to Rs. 125,000 per annum. Dhar is called Dhara Nugger by the Hindoos. It is probably the ancient Dhara Nugger; but its importance in the authentic history of Malwah is chiefly derived from its becoming, on the transfer of the government from Oojein, the seat of the princes of that province previously to their final establishment at Mandoo. This was effected by Rajah Blij (the great), who was the eleventh in descent from Vikrain Aditya, or Vikram Ajeet, whose era, 56 before Christ, is still current in the Deccan."

Previously, however, Dhar appears to have been held from a vast antiquity by the Puar or Powar tribe of Rajpoots, which is traceable for 1,058 years in its rule over Malwah, of which Dhar or Dharwarra was the capital. At what period the Puars of Dhar, or a branch of them, emigrated to the Deccan, is not known; but they were zemindars and landholders there when Sivajee rose to power, became leaders of troops in the national cause, and continued to be so after Sivajees